Firefighters attended around five extra incidents a day between April and June, compared to the same months of the previous year.

A report prepared for a meeting of the Nottinghamshire and City of Nottingham Fire and Rescue Authority shows that that a total of 2,987 incidents were attended between April and June this year, an increase of 467 during the same months of the previous year.

Secondary deliberate fires such as bins or tree fires and emergency first responding incidents has been identified as the reasons behind the rise.

Crews attended 34 fires resulting in 10 people, one dog and ten cats being rescued and three people being led to safety. Eighteen canaries were also recorded as fatalities at one incident and 14 fire casualties (non fatal).

A revised exercise planning procedure has also been organised. The themes to be covered are fire fighting in high-rise buildings and fire fighting in basements.

Dan Quinn, area manager for Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: "Given that public safety is our number one priority, any rise in incidents is something we take very seriously.

"However, when you look into the details of this rise, out of the 467 extra calls, more than half were emergency first responding incidents – which is an incident type that we didn’t attend at all during the same period last year.

"In fact, our attendance at these incidents only started towards the end of last year and came through a trial that saw us go one step further to help our communities, by attending to medical emergencies in addition to everything else we do."

Mr Quinn is pleased the number of road traffic collisions, accidental dwelling fires and fire fatalities reduced over the period.

Read More

He said: "Reducing these incident types is something that we work very hard on and it is our aim to continue to drive down these numbers, through community work and education, over the coming months and indeed years.

"If, finally, you then take a look at where the rest of this incident rise has come from – it is primarily through deliberate secondary fires. These are incidents, such as grass and bin fires, that have been started on purpose.

"What has undoubtedly contributed to the 124 extra secondary fires we’ve had in the last three months, in comparison to the same period last year, is the spates that we have seen in Harworth and Bulwell Forest."